White Chocolate Cake “The Bomb”
I was craving something sweet the other day and didn’t know what exactly to make since I wanted it to be chocolatey but not something I had already made…then it came to me…I was going to make a WHITE chocolate cake. I have never really been a huge fan of white chocolate on it’s own (I always buy milk or dark when I have the option) but I had recently tried a delicious white chocolate mousse that made me realise the potential white chocolate has in desserts.
I looked for some recipe inspiration but couldn’t find anything that really spoke to me so I decided to make my own recipe from scratch. I had read that melting white chocolate was not as easy as melting dark chocolate but if you follow the steps it will be perfectly fine :)
I’m not going to lie, this cake is A LOT. It’s not a healthy fluffy cake, this thing is the real deal, it really reminded me of some cakes I have eaten in the US and while I was eating it I had mixed feelings between “hmmm this tastes homey” and “shit how many calories have I just eaten?”. Let’s put it this way, this is a treat yourself cake, a great cake for birthday parties and a great cake to bring to a cheat night dinner.
Prep Time: 25 Min
Cooking Time: 40 Min
Ingredients (for a 22cm cake)
White Chocolate - 200gr
Lukewarm water - 230ml
Butter - 200gr
Cane Sugar - 150gr
Eggs - 3
Baking Powder - 1 bag
Vanilla - 1 stick
Flour - 300gr
Buttermilk - 200ml
Salt - a pinch
Jam (we used fig jam) - 250gr
Chopped Pistachios - as many as you want
Ingredients for the frosting
Butter - 200gr
Powdered sugar - 200gr
White Chocolate - 300gr
How to:
Start by pre-heating the oven at 180°C.
Chop the first 200 grams of chocolate and place it in a smaller pan along with the lukewarm water. You will be heating the white chocolate in a bain-marie style. This means you will be taking a large pan where you will heat up (don’t let it boil though) water and you will place the smaller pan with the ingredients on top of the big pan so that the white chocolate and lukewarm water heat up in their own little pan which is getting heat from the below water. This method is used a lot when you want to heat up stuff in a very delicate way.
Stir the white chocolate and water until it becomes a smooth mixture and put it aside to cool.
You will now be working on the cake mix. In a bowl add the butter (at room temperature!) and the cane sugar. Mix until you get a fluffy substance, there should be no clumps. Then add the eggs, vanilla extract (cut the vanilla sticks and remove everything that’s inside and add it into the mixture), baking powder, and a pinch of salt. Mix everything together for around 3 minutes. The mixture should be nice and smooth.
Now is the time to add the flour, the buttermilk, and the melted white chocolate. Make sure you don’t add everything at the same time. We suggest you add first the buttermilk and then the flour and then the white chocolate. Mix again for another 2 minutes until the mixture is nice and smooth again.
Add your chopped pistachios or chopped almonds to the mixture.
Take out a 22cm cake mould, get some butter at room temperature and cover the mould in it to make sure that the cake won’t stick later. Pour in the mixture and place it in the oven for around 40 min.
Here you need to use the knife or toothpick method to make sure that your cake is ready. After 30 min start to check by poking the cake and seeing how wet it still is inside. Repeat this action every 5 minutes until the toothpick is almost dry - this is when your cake is ready.
Set the cake aside until it has fully cooled down.
In the meantime you can start working on your frosting - take your remaining 300 grams of white chocolate and do the bain-marie method with them (without adding water this time! Just melting the chocolate alone). Once it’s melted put it away to cool.
In a bowl, combine the powdered sugar and the butter at room temperature and start mixing - add the white chocolate once it has cooled a bit. And voilà, your frosting is done!
Now comes the fun part: assembling and decorating the cake. Take out your now cooled cake (please make sure it’s cool before proceeding or it might break). Cut the cake in half like a sandwich and put the top part aside. Take the bottom part and spread your favourite jam as well as some frosting. Take the top part again and close the sandwich.
Now comes a delicate part, if the top of your cake baked and unevenly you might have to cut it a bit with a knife to make it even. Once it’s even it’s time to spread the frosting evenly with a spatula. Once this is done you can decorate your cake with various things: pistachios, strawberries, blueberries etc.
Place the cake in the oven for at least 2 hours and then it’s ready to be served :)